Montego II Quadzilla

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Review: Montego II Quadzilla

The Quadzilla went in without major problems. I installed the main board and breakout bracket (which provides additional outputs for digital sound and rear speakers), connected them with the included cable, hooked up my CD-ROM drive to the sound card, and was ready to fire up the system. Windows 98 picked up the new card, installed the drivers for its myriad components, and there was sound.

Now, I was already a fan of A3D's ability to provide the illusion of 3D sound with only two-speaker output. (It's even better with headphones.) The sound card software includes a few of Aureal's nifty demos, such as a helicopter circling around a central point in a 3D interface, so you can check out the side and rear sounds.

But the Quadzilla's true voice speaks up in games. It ships with the A3D-supported X-Wing Alliance, an excellent sounding board for A3D. There is nothing quite like being chased by a pack of Tie Fighters and being able to hear them buzzing threateningly behind you.

I also tried out the Half-Life mod, Team Fortress Classic. It took a bit of troubleshooting to get A3D support enabled in Half-Life, and I finally had to download and install the 2.08 A3D patch from Aureal's site. (Aureal has A3D patches for over a dozen games, including Tribes, Shogo, X-Wing Alliance, and Starfleet Academy, available at its web site at www.a3d.com/html/download/patches/)

But it was well worth the extra work. I was able to hear the enemy not only to each side and behind me, but above and below as well. It makes for a decided advantage if you can train your ear to pick up an enemy around the corner and know for sure that you're actually hearing a person and not some trick of your comparatively mundane speakers and sound card.

Of course, two-speaker 3D sound pales in comparison to a system sporting a third and fourth rear speaker. Even if you don't have a four-speaker set, you can take a pair of old speakers and plug them into the output of the breakout bracket for complete surround sound.

Unfortunately, while the Quadzilla itself only takes up the standard single IRQ and PCI slot, it'll cost you an extra PCI slot for the breakout bracket. This second bracket connects only to a rear slot in your computer's chassis, but its presence prevents you from plugging a card into the associated PCI slot. Since I still had four empty slots, it wasn't a problem for me. But if you're facing internal space constraints, you might want to consider a card that will only take up one slot.

Sacrificing the second slot is an annoyance, but if you've got the space, the Montego II Quadzilla makes for a sound investment.-- Joel Strauch / GamePro